


The Following Sea

by goldfinch



Category: The Goldfinch - Donna Tartt
Genre: Beating, Gen, Implied/Referenced Drug Use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-16
Updated: 2014-07-16
Packaged: 2018-02-09 02:53:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1966233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goldfinch/pseuds/goldfinch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Standing on a street corner in New York, a thousand miles from the desert heat of Las Vegas but speechless and dry-mouthed with rage just the same, Theo lunges for his phone. "Boris," he says, "I need you to help me do something."</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Following Sea

Pippa comes out wearing a grey cocoon coat, and a scarf that pushes her hair into a bright copper cloud - even from across the street Theo can see the pink curve of her mouth. And here he stops, transfixed, the way he always does when he sees her. He’s thirteen again and there is no painting, no counterfeit furniture, no tin of pills rattling in his pocket.

He can’t remember if he’d been this needy and obsessive as a child. But like so many other things in his life, perhaps his mother’s death changed that, too. He lost one thing and he can’t ever lose anything else.

She’s paused on the porch, looking back into the apartment, and he’s thinking of going over to her, he’s putting out his cigarette to do it when Everett appears in the doorway. Smiles, puts his arms around her waist, their heads bent together. He’s speaking to her, or she’s speaking to him. A single cloud of breath rises from their mouths. Something in Theo’s face spasms. He’s thought once or twice of buying Everett off, of pressing a check into his palm and telling him, Leave. Don’t email her, don't call her; delete her number. Now he wants to do something more immediate and satisfying; he wants to rush over and pull Everett from her arms and sock him in the face, maybe even knock a tooth out. Pippa’s there, but Theo can feel rain dripping cold down the collar of his coat, and he wants, he wants -

Standing on a street corner in New York, a thousand miles from the desert heat of Las Vegas but speechless and dry-mouthed with rage just the same, Theo lunges for his phone.

“Potter!” Boris’ voice is bright and cheerful over the roar of a bus or train, traffic, black streets in the dark; Theo imagines him on a street corner, maybe outside a club like the one they went to together, rooms full of whirling red lights and music.

“Hey. Boris listen.” He’s staring at Everett’s back in the bad light, hatred singing high in his veins, "I need you to help me do something."

"Of course! Where are you? Gio will pick you up."

"No, it's not - it's here, I want to do it now. I'm at the corner of 5th and 69th. There’s this guy I want to, uh, take care of. Not kill, not kill, just... you know.”

A pause from the other end: Boris moving the phone to his other ear. “Who is it?”

“His name's Everett. He's - you remember that girl I wrote when I was in Vegas?"

"With the head injury? A redhead you said I think, yes, I remember, like a penny."

“He’s her boyfriend."

And Boris is probably high, because he laughs again, a high sound that pitches Theo back to Vegas, to blood in the chlorine reek of the swimming pool, to Boris's hands in his hair. His palm flutters up against his coat to touch the Redbreast Flake tin in his pocket. 

"Potter," Boris says, breathless with laughter. "Yes. Yes. Is only thing I have ever wanted." 

“Excellent. Ok, great. You know how to get here? It’s the east side of the park. But I think they’re doing some construction at the plaza, so you’ll have to go past 5th to Madison -“ 

"Gio will put you in GPS. Ten minutes tops. But first I will change cars, maybe? Just in case.”

So he lights another cigarette, and fifteen minutes later there’s a hand over his mouth and a warm body pressed against his back, a short huff of laughter in his ear. “Guess who?” 

“Fuck,” Theo says, turning. “Get off of me.” Boris is wearing a long coat and his stupid flashy watch, and Theo can see his grin in the yellow glow of the nearest streetlamp. He’s wearing an expensive cologne - a dark smell, musky and a little sweet, and this close Theo can smell the alcohol in his skin. “Took you long enough.”

“I nearly got pulled over on the way here, Potter, so I am not hearing that. Nearly got pulled over _twice_. Gyuri is good driver, but, these cops -” He shrugs.

“Yeah, sure.”

“Anyway, I have something to show you, here.” He pushes his jacket open, comes out with a handgun. Sleek glint in the yellow streetlight, black metal and bright points of steel screws. “Is brand new! Bought yesterday! I got a good deal, only 300 dollars, with bullets and everything.”

“Jesus, Boris. What'd you bring it for?” 

Boris holds his hands up. “Am only covering bases. When I worked for the Texan sometimes things went bad very quickly, so, I learned to be careful. Once this old man, like spider, thin arms and legs, you know, not someone you would expect, he has a gun, and waves it in air like so. Alex, who I was with, nearly lost a toe.” 

“He shot him in the foot?” 

“No, Alex dropped the knife he was carrying. He was new. Very stupid. And not good-looking either. Face like a bucket of smashed crabs.” 

Theo can’t help it; he snorts, laughing. “Jesus Christ.” 

But Boris just shrugs. He’s lit a cigarette, and the glow is a warm orange flush on his cheeks. He glances toward Pippa and Everett, still entwined at the foot of the steps. “I will get him off street, and then you can do what you like.” 

“What? Why shouldn’t I?” 

“Because.” Boris shrugs, but when Theo looks over his face is serious. “Me he does not know, but you? Could pick you out in two heart beatings, probably.” Bright orange glow, plume of smoke out through his nostrils. Boris leans forward, peering at him. “Is still time, you know,” he says. “Do you want to do this? Truly?” 

Theo looks toward Pippa, at Everett, who has his hands tangled up in hers and is smiling into pale arch of her forehead, the fine copper curl of her hair. He feels his mouth open a little, scrape of teeth on nothing. “Yeah,” he says.

It takes them another ten minutes to separate, and Theo spends most of the time sharing another cigarette with Boris, staring at Everett and remembering the last time he and Pippa were together, on the steps of Hobie’s house, talking till dawn. Does Everett know she likes Stravinsky and old Renaissance composers, Catholic hymns spiraling off into high-vaulted ceilings? Does he think of her when he's doing laundry, or opening the cupboard to get cereal, or closing taxis doors behind him? He couldn’t know her life the way Theo knew it, that shared loss linking them together like twin moons, born in the Met in a mess of gray smoke and debris. He couldn’t. He couldn’t.

Theo watches as Pippa goes inside, pausing on the porch to wave - quick flutter of her hand, longer pause in the doorway, finally the door closing, then Everett tramping down the sidewalk straight toward them. Boris claps Theo cheerfully on the shoulder, then steps forward.

Everett, penniless English Everett with his poet’s hands and his relentless good cheer, doesn’t have a chance. Boris locks an arm around his throat and leans in, hissing something in his ear - Don’t scream, Be quiet, Wrong move and I break your neck, okay? 

Down into a stairwell, where Boris presses Everett’s back against some clothing place’s front door. The streetlights are widely spaced, but there’s light thrown from the storefronts and the apartments across the street, and Theo can make out his pasty English face, the twin smudges of shadow across his eyes. He’s saying something about money, about his wallet. Boris has an arm across Everett’s chest and Theo remembers what Grisha said about him, before Theo knew who he was talking about, how Boris looked like someone you wouldn’t want to meet in a dark alley. But Everett’s looking at Theo, probably because it’s Theo who’s drawing a fist back and punching him, hard, in the face. 

He gets in one more before Boris grabs his wrist, says, “You will break your fingers like that, Potter, here -“ so he brings a foot back instead. It’s not as satisfying, but it hurts less, and Everett folds with a ragged _umph_ to the pavement. 

So he does it again. 

Again. 

“Please -“ 

Theo lurches forward, hauling him up. He might be saying something about Pippa, he’s not sure; he’s aware of Everett’s jacket between his fingers and the light smattering of hair along his chin, like he maybe hasn’t shaved in a day or two. It’s thin and patchy, like a teenager’s. Theo can’t catch his breath and his fingers ache, but it doesn’t feel like he actually broke something. When he steps back, Everett hauls himself forward, heading for the stairs or maybe just for Theo’s ankles, he doesn’t know, because Boris pushes Everett back with one booted foot. 

“Stay there!” Boris barks, but Everett doesn’t, so Boris pulls the pistol out and whips him across the face with it. It makes a sound like a watermelon breaking open on the sidewalk, and when Boris steps back, stone-faced, his hair a mess and blood on his hands, Theo has never loved anyone more. 

“Jesus.” Theo presses the back of his hand to his lips, tastes blood. Boris kissed him once, right on the mouth, in a city darkness not unlike this. 

There’s a little spatter of blood on the concrete, shiny and dark as an oil slick. Everett rolls over onto his back, groaning, and when their eyes meet Everett’s face goes strange and wide, too open: recognition.

“Fuck,” Theo breathes. He reaches out sideways. “Boris -“ 

But Boris has already swooped down on Everett, coat spreading out like something from a fairy-tale, from one of the books Theo’s mother read him as a child. A prince, in dark clothing, kneeling in the snow. “Do you know him?” Boris is asking, voice low but somehow sweet, too, as though he’s talking to a child. 

Everett groans, manages, “I - I don’t. I don’t know?” 

“Who did this to you?” 

A bit steadier: “I don’t know.” 

“Good boy.” Boris claps a hand against the side of Everett’s face, turns around already grinning. “See? Is sorted. No problem.” And it has to be enough, because Theo won’t shoot him, not even Everett, who’s lying trembling on the ground, coughing a little and whining tiny little animal noises. “But,” Boris says, “we should not hang around too long, you get me.”

Theo nods. He feels weak, the backwash of panic that had made him reach for Boris the first time. Out on the street a car passes, and then another. 

“Potter -“ 

Theo swallows. “Yeah. Yeah.” 

They go.


End file.
